Attorney: Convicted tax schemer is too fat for prison

Attorney: Convicted tax schemer is too fat for prison

Oct. 17, 2017

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The attorney for a 72-year-old Florida man who was convicted in a tax scheme is using obesity to try to keep his client out of prison.

Curtis Fallgatter wrote in a court filing on Monday that Stephen Donaldson Sr. doesn't have an average man's life expectancy because he's 5-foot-9 and weighs 273 pounds (124 kilograms). For that reason, the attorney wrote, it's not right to make him serve 6 years and four months in prison. Fallgatter wrote that the prison term could translate to 61 percent of Donaldson's remaining time on earth.

The Tampa Bay Times reports Donaldson was sentenced last week in Tampa for his part of peddling an offshore tax shelter that cost the IRS an estimated $10 million.